Posted on 07/23/2025 9:17:55 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Colbert killed comedy. Then comedy killed his show.
The Late Show was born out of the desperation of CBS executives to poach David Letterman. Johnny Carson had decided to bring his unchallenged reign over late night to an end. The future of the Tonight Show was up between Jay Leno, a hard-working comic, and Letterman, the darling of media types in New York, who had the hip alternative Late Night show.
NBC settled on Leno, who underwent the first of a series of bastings by the chattering classes for upstaging one of their favorite cringe comics, while CBS created the Late Show to lure Letterman. Initially it seemed as if CBS had gotten a good deal. Buoyed by favorable media coverage, Letterman’s ratings soared while Leno struggled, but over the long haul, Leno could do a traditional comedy monologue while Letterman’s wit lay in subverting late night comedy.
NBC bet on comedy, CBS bet on awkward cringe, and comedy won while awkward cringe lost.
What most people wanted from late night was a zippy monologue with lots of easy punch lines to laugh at followed by a smooth interview with a celebrity guest, not a deconstruction of comedy, awkward moments, facial tics and a fascination with random sounds that Letterman brought to his nightly Lake Wobegon from a Manhattan theater fests and to the Oscars.
History repeated itself again when NBC scrambled to replace Letterman on the Late Show with Conan O’Brien, a talented Saturday Night Live writer with no standup skills or ability as a performer. The Late Show with Conan O’Brien was clever, subversive and everything a show aimed at young college grads from New York City should be. But not suited for the big stage.
When NBC tried to replace Leno with Conan, the whole thing blew up...
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
Since Carson left the only ones that I have liked to any degree were Craig Kilborn (Daily Show/Late Late Show) and Craig Ferguson (Late Late Show).
Leno was ok, but Carson was just too hard to follow in my mind.
For a couple generations now, the big reliable joke for Late Night shows is: “Republicans are stupid.” That joke right there used to bring down the house very consistently. But it’s not enough now. But they have nothing else.
Richard Pryor and Robin Williams were the only 2 I laughed with, unless I went back to Johnny Carson. The rest, and current, were merely lousy ‘pretenders’ to comedy.
I think they just missed the memo..
Colbert is just NOT funny.
And the late night talk shows have veered away from being funny, variety shows to post nightly news, news opinion shows, featuring interviews with the anchors from the previous day’s shows plus various democrat elected officials.
Letterman, was definitely left wing. But the show had enough humor. And the show was not politics centered, or in your face propaganda. So, it was at least able to pull a varied audience.
For a while I would watch Leno’s monologue mostly just on Monday nights as I waited for ‘headlines.’ It seemed to center around a small collection of ideas ‘George Bush has a the mind of an infant’, ‘Brittish people have bad teeth’ and ‘Jennifer Lopez has a large butt.’
At some point his ‘comedy writers’ went on strike and Leno became funny again!
I normally don’t find Daniel Greenfield to be inspired reading. However, I also didn’t expect him to succinctly lay out the last thirty years of late night network television programming. Worth the read, because he uses the summary to land his point about where the business is going, and why it is failing. Well done.
Flush half your audience...you get flushed.
The era ended in 2009 when Jay Leno had to retire for the first time. Letterman lasted until 2015 but he was not the same at the end because he was becoming political.
Today I can watch Mr. Beast on streaming. No need for me to watch a "Late Nite" program on TV.
Carson didn’t do politics... These late night talk fools they’ve had on there lately have political agendas that they have pushed on their audience and their audience disappeared. No audience... No show.
Well said.
Obama killed comedy. For eight years nobody could make fun of the President.
Conan O’Brian was to L
ate Night Hosts something equal to what singer Christopher Cross was to popular music.
Both were pleasant men, natural smilers, excellent and appealing in their own way, but the national zeitgeist, the overall consumer mood and expectation had dramatically shifted just as they had achieved the high points of their entertainment careers.
Conan was/is a pleasant guy, but the Libs of that time had been conditioned by Jon Stewart types to expect disharmony, friction, less professionalism, hard edges, rude behavior and spontaneous aggression. Same story with Christopher Cross. He had an excellent voice, perfect pitch, profoundly appealing melodies, but just as Music Videos took off, it was realized that Christopher didn’t look the part. He looked like a wrestler, but sang like an Angel. Just then, “Aspiring Rappers” and Autotuned Strippers were being celebrated by the most ignorant, least refined of consumer bases.
And no one dared to. It's almost like he's Putin lol.
It’s not about comedy. Carson was not a comedian. He was a talk show host with a good sense of humor
It’s about late night. People tune in before bed. They want and need a wrap up of the day’s events.
Carson took advantage of tge need as did jack paar and Steve Allen. Leno was narcissistic and nasty so was letterman who went liberal with the show just after he had Hillary on and went in for emergency cardiac procedure the day after.
Consent rogue and got away from all of it. He now has an interview podcast that does very well. Contrary to Mr Greenfield’s take, Conan is quite the good interviewer with a good understanding of the interests young adults he has on all the current culturally relevant guests
“according to Variety. It averages over 9 million downloads per month”
Late night is driven by the audience. Tge audience needs it
CBS et al are too thick headed and proud (in the virtue sense of the word)to seek out that audience who would tune in if the network would understand what Johnny was doing
I just watch Gutfeld. It’s funnier but political.
Gutfeld. This is the way.
Bkmk
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